Domain Expansion

December 28, four in the morning.

Suguru Geto stood at Jujutsu High's main gate. The sky was still dark. He wore his school uniform under a thick black coat, with the gray scarf Haibara had given him wrapped twice around his neck. The knife Satoru Gojo had given him was tucked into his belt.

The car had already arrived. The assistant supervisor was a middle-aged man he didn't recognize, who merely nodded without exchanging pleasantries. Yuka Matsumoto stood beside the car, holding her device. She bowed slightly when she saw Geto approach.

"Mr. Geto, I'll conduct my observations from beyond the safe perimeter this time. I won't interfere with the mission."

Geto nodded, opened the car door, and sat in the back seat. Matsumoto took the front passenger seat.

"What about Mr. Satoru Gojo?" Matsumoto asked.

"He's taking another route," Geto said.

This was what he and Gojo had agreed on. Gojo would enter the mountain from another route and stand by on the perimeter. His cursed energy was too immense; entering the mine tunnels would alert the cursed spirit and send it fleeing prematurely. Once it escaped into the rock strata deep in the mountains, finding it again would be difficult. Gojo was deeply unhappy with the arrangement, but he hadn't insisted, because he knew Geto was right.

"Twenty minutes," Gojo had said the night before. "If you're not out twenty minutes after going in, I'm coming in."

At five forty, the car stopped at the foot of the mountain.

Dense forest surrounded them, with a mountain trail winding uphill through the trees.

Geto got out and stood in the snow. He summoned Rainbow Dragon from his shadow. The silvery-white, dragon-shaped cursed spirit circled once in midair before landing at his feet.

Rainbow Dragon was one of the strongest cursed spirits he had subdued. It was Semi-Special Grade, with exceptional defense and mobility.

Geto climbed onto Rainbow Dragon's back. Its silvery-white body carried him into the air, heading straight for the summit.

At six sharp, he reached the mountaintop.

Nothing was visible inside the mine entrance. A rusted iron sign hung above the opening, bearing the words "Asama Ridge Mine," its lettering already faded and blurred.

Gojo stood beside the entrance, leaning against the trunk of a large tree. He wore a black coat and sunglasses, both hands in his pockets. When he saw Geto jump off Rainbow Dragon's back, he took off his sunglasses and looked at him.

"Your cursed energy fluctuations are even more unstable than they were this morning," Gojo said.

"The mountain trail was too steep. I rushed a little," Geto said.

Gojo stared at him for two seconds without pressing further. He took a small object out of his pocket and tossed it to Geto. It was a flashlight with a heavy metal casing.

"There aren't any lights inside," Gojo said.

Geto clipped the flashlight to his belt beside the knife Gojo had given him. He walked to the entrance and peered inside. The flashlight's beam shone into the tunnel, illuminating a few meters of the path ahead.

"Twenty minutes," Gojo said behind him.

"Twenty minutes," Geto repeated.

He stepped forward. Rainbow Dragon followed him, shrinking slightly to fit the narrow mine tunnel. Its silvery-white glow was like a moving lamp in the darkness.

The tunnel ran deep. Geto released more than a dozen low-level cursed spirits to scout ahead. The cursed spirit was in the deepest part, two hundred meters underground.

He quickened his pace. Rainbow Dragon gave a low whine behind him, warning him of danger ahead.

The tunnel suddenly widened. The flashlight's beam swept across an enormous underground chamber. This had once been the heart of the mineral vein.

The cursed spirit was right in the center.

It looked like a massive, irregular rock, its surface covered in fissures. Red light flowed through them like magma. It was so huge that Geto had to tilt his head back to see its top, as though it had grown out of the surrounding stone.

The enormous rock slowly expanded and contracted. With every expansion, the red light in its fissures brightened; with every contraction, it dimmed.

This mine had swallowed countless lives. Mining accidents, cave-ins, gas explosions. The fear and despair of those who had died had settled deep within this mountain, eventually coalescing into this thing.

Geto summoned Slit-Mouthed Woman from his shadow. The cursed spirit appeared beside him in a white dress, her face hidden by long hair and an enormous pair of scissors in her hand. Rainbow Dragon returned to its original size, its silvery-white body filling more than half the chamber.

The enormous rock moved.

Its fissures widened and deepened, red light pouring out. Its surface began to crumble, and rocky limbs emerged from the cracks, red light flowing over them. Those limbs reached toward Geto, slowly but with unstoppable force.

"Slit-Mouthed Woman," Geto said quietly.

Slit-Mouthed Woman flashed across the chamber like white lightning, appearing directly in front of the rock. Her enormous scissors opened, clamped around a rocky limb, and severed it with a snap. Her shrill laughter echoed through the underground chamber.

Rainbow Dragon rose into the air and lashed its tail against the rock's surface, carving out a deep crack. It fired a silvery-white beam from its mouth, striking the rock dead center.

The enormous rock shuddered violently.

But new limbs emerged from its fissures, more than before. For every limb Slit-Mouthed Woman severed, two more grew. Rainbow Dragon's beams left scorched black marks across the rock's surface but couldn't penetrate its core.

Geto knew that continuing like this would turn the fight into a battle of attrition. His cursed energy was limited, and the egg was still constantly absorbing it. Every minute he dragged this out, he grew weaker.

He needed a stronger attack.

He closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into his cursed energy core. The egg was pulsing, releasing tremendous energy. Geto guided that energy into his hands, into his consciousness, into the move he had spent so long preparing.

Domain Expansion: [All Spirits Submit: Cursed Spirit Prison].

The world changed.

The underground chamber vanished. The tunnels vanished. The rocks vanished. They stood on a boundless wasteland. The ground was black, covered in countless engravings shaped like cursed spirits, densely packed and layered over one another. The sky was overcast. Thick mist formed from cursed energy churned over the ground, curling around Geto's ankles like something alive.

Countless cursed spirits he had subdued hung in the air around him, floating above the thick mist and revolving around him.

The rock cursed spirit was trapped within this space. Its limbs flailed wildly. The domain's thick cursed energy mist slowed its movements, and the black fog suppressed its red glow, making it much dimmer.

Geto felt the power the domain granted him. The engravings on the ground glowed, the outlines of the cursed spirits seeming to come alive as they poured an endless stream of power into him. The afterimages of Rainbow Dragon and Slit-Mouthed Woman grew more solid, their cursed energy surging.

"Rainbow Dragon," Geto said.

Rainbow Dragon's physical form unfurled within the domain. It was nearly twice its usual size, its silvery-white scales covered in black cursed energy markings. It opened its mouth. The beam it fired was no longer silvery-white but blazing white streaked with black patterns, and it struck the rock cursed spirit dead center.

The blast tore a large hole in the rock's surface. Red light spilled from it, flowing like blood.

The rock cursed spirit let out a deep rumble. It was about to counterattack.

The enormous rock abruptly contracted. All its limbs withdrew, and all its fissures closed. It was gathering power; Geto could feel it. The surrounding cursed energy mist began flowing toward the rock cursed spirit.

It actually expanded a domain of its own.

Unlike Geto's open domain, it was an enclosed barrier. Red light formed an enormous shield around it. Cracks covered the shield's surface, with something like magma flowing through them.

Geto's domain was pushed back. The boundaries of the two domains collided in midair with a piercing screech. Black mist and red light tore each other apart and reformed along the border.

The rock cursed spirit's domain fully expanded.

Its name surfaced in Geto's consciousness.

[Netherworld Vein: Ten Thousand Bones Collapse].

Geto saw the interior of that domain.

It was an enormous mine. Black rock walls stretched from the ground to the horizon, embedded with human remains. Those skeletons writhed. There was no sky overhead, only endless rock that looked ready to collapse at any moment.

Gravity changed.

Geto felt his body suddenly grow heavier. His movements began to slow, and every lift of his hand, every step, required several times his usual strength.

Rainbow Dragon and Slit-Mouthed Woman were affected too. Rainbow Dragon was forced to fly lower, and Slit-Mouthed Woman's scissors grew heavy.

The rock cursed spirit's main body transformed at the center of that domain. It no longer took the shape of a rock. Instead, tentacles made of bones and ore grew from the rock walls. They lashed toward Geto with astonishing speed.

Geto's domain automatically activated its damage substitution. A Grade 2 Cursed Spirit fell from the air, taking the first strike in his place. The tentacle struck the ground, carving a deep trench.

But the second and third strikes followed immediately.

The tentacles lashed down like a torrential rain, too fast for the substitution mechanism to keep up. Geto's cursed energy drained rapidly. Every blocked strike shattered a cursed spirit, and every shattered spirit had to be reconstituted. Yet those skeletal tentacles seemed endless.

He needed to break this domain.

Geto crouched and pressed both hands against the ground. He let his own domain seep into the rock cursed spirit's domain.

[Forced Capture: Cursed Spirit Binding Chains].

Black chains shot from the edges of his domain, crossed the border between the two domains, and wrapped around several skeletal tentacles within the rock cursed spirit's domain. The bound tentacles began struggling violently, but the cursed inscriptions on the chains glowed, slowing their movements.

The rock cursed spirit sensed the threat. It brought more tentacles over, not to attack Geto but to attack the chains. The skeletal tentacles tore at them, and the chains began to snap.

But the chains themselves weren't what Geto wanted.

He wanted information.

In the few seconds the chains had remained attached to the tentacles, his domain had finished analyzing the structure of the rock cursed spirit's domain. He saw that its core wasn't at the center but in the deepest reaches underground: a red crystalline core formed from pure cursed energy.

Geto stood up.

He mobilized every cursed spirit within his domain to reinforce it. They descended from the air and embedded themselves in the engravings on the ground. Soon, the engravings grew brighter, the mist grew denser, and his domain began expanding outward.

The boundary between the two domains shifted. Geto's black mist devoured the rock cursed spirit's red light little by little.

The rock cursed spirit let out an enraged rumble. It withdrew every tentacle, then condensed the power of its entire domain into a sphere of bones and magma, suspended at the border between the two domains. The sphere spun, absorbing all the cursed energy around it, growing larger and brighter.

It was preparing its final strike.

Geto knew that if the sphere erupted, his domain would be blasted apart outright. The substitution mechanism couldn't stop an attack of this magnitude. It would destroy every cursed spirit within the domain, and then the shock wave would hit him directly.

He had to destroy its core before the sphere erupted.

Geto extended his right hand.

[Maximum: Uzumaki].

This was one of Cursed Spirit Manipulation's ultimate techniques: fusing multiple cursed spirits into a high-density mass of energy, then releasing it. Their power was compressed, fused, and condensed. A spinning black sphere appeared above his palm, rotating, swelling, and emitting a low hum.

Geto thrust the sphere forward.

Uzumaki tore through the air and slammed into the rock cursed spirit with devastating force. The instant they made contact, the world turned white.

It wasn't light, but sound. A shock wave that transcended sound, shattering consciousness directly. It pushed Geto several steps backward. Slit-Mouthed Woman drove her scissors into the ground to steady herself, while Rainbow Dragon tumbled twice in the air before regaining its balance.

The rock cursed spirit was swallowed by Uzumaki.

Its core was compressed and pulverized at the center of the vortex, letting out one final rumble.

The light faded.

The domains vanished. Geto stood in the original underground chamber, rubble and dust beneath his feet and black rock overhead. The flashlight lay on the ground, its beam shining crookedly against the wall.

The cursed spirit had been compressed into a Cursed Spirit Orb and fallen to the ground. Geto swallowed it.

It was the same familiar taste. He bent over, braced his hands on his knees, and began dry-heaving.

The egg pulsed frantically inside him. The special grade cursed spirit's cursed energy poured into it, and it swelled and grew, going from two and a half fists in size to three and a half.

Ever since the egg had appeared inside him, he had been unable to release any cursed spirits it absorbed, including the ones he had subdued on the previous two occasions.

Geto gasped for breath. Sweat dripped from his forehead, and his vision blurred slightly. He forced himself upright and began walking back.

With every step, he could feel the egg pulsing. Its light cast a faint glow through the dark mine tunnel. He supported himself against the rock wall, moving forward one step at a time.

He saw the light at the entrance. Dawn had broken, and he quickened his pace.

Gojo stood outside the entrance, his coat snapping in the wind, his eyes behind his sunglasses fixed on Geto. He said nothing. He just watched.

Geto walked up to him and stopped.

"Twenty minutes," Geto said, his voice so hoarse it hardly sounded like his own.

Gojo glanced at his watch. "Eighteen minutes and forty seconds."

The corner of Geto's mouth twitched.

Then his legs gave out.

Gojo reached out and caught him. One hand gripped his arm while the other pressed against his shoulder, steadying him.

"Come on," Gojo said. "Down the mountain."